The term “instant classic” can be bandied about too easily and frequently. When Andrew Dominik’s “Chopper” received it in 2000, however, it was well-deserved. Interest and intrigue was soaring at the time; at some of the feature’s first-ever screenings, lines snaked down the street. Opinions raged in advance about whether Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read was a worthy film subject, his drunken TV appearance on “McFeast Live” two years earlier helping to fuel the debate. “Chopper’s” casting was a conversation point, too, with Eric Bana then best-known in comedy, including on sketch series “Full Frontal,” his own skit-driven “The Eric Bana Show Live” and a role in “The Castle.”
The Simon Lyndon, Vince Colosimo, David Field, Dan Wylie and Kate Beahan-co-starring feature’s status as an Australian masterpiece was quickly established just by seeing it. Dominik doesn’t give Read the biopic treatment. More than aware of Chopper’s love of telling a good yarn, he doesn’t stick to Read’s books, either. Contrasting Chopper’s time in and out and prison, the filmmaker draws upon reality — aided by police records and court transcripts while writing, alongside news coverage, interviews with police and prison workers, and time spent with Read himself (after he initially declined to be involved) — to craft a picture that sports a sense of humour matching the man at its centre, and that aims for emotional and psychological truth in unpacking a complex and colourful personality.
The AFI Awards, the Australian Film Institute’s precursor to the AACTAs, gave “Chopper” ten nominations. Bana won Best Actor, Dominik took home Best Director and Lyndon received the Best Supporting Actor prize. The British Independent Film Awards named it among its Best Foreign Independent Film — English Language contenders in 2001. Although the Australian title lost to Christopher Nolan’s Guy Pearce-led “Memento,” only six others have ever been nominated in the accolade’s 27 years: “The Castle,” “Lantana” (which won in 2002), “Animal Kingdom,” “The Babadook” and “Babyteeth.”
Still, a quarter of a century ago, Dominik didn’t expect that he’d still be talking about his magnetic first feature decades later. That wasn’t a reflection of the quality of the film, even if he admits that he thinks he made mistakes on it. “It was my first film. There was a bunch of scenes that I fucked up which aren’t in the film. So I’m not showing you my mistakes, but I did make some,” he tells Variety AU/NZ.
Not anticipating that he’d still be chatting about “Chopper” come 2025 isn’t a judgement of its notorious crime-figure subject — the underworld standover man and killer who had taken his exploits, and his preferred version of himself, to the page via nine published books before “Chopper” released — either. “I don’t think, in those days, I could imagine myself being in my mid 50s. I don’t think I could even conceive of 25 years later,” he advises. “So no, I guess, is the short answer.”
“Chopper” isn’t just simply still worth discussing 25 years on — it’s still worth screening in cinemas. Mushroom Studios has done just that to celebrate the anniversary, re-releasing the feature on Thursday, August 21. While one-off retrospective and occasional showings of noteworthy films aren’t rare, and in fact are a sturdy source of box-office income for theatres, “Chopper” is back in general release with daily sessions. The same occurred for the picture’s 20th anniversary as well.
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Is making a debut feature that’s had the life that “Chopper” has enjoyed and keeps enjoying — the response at the time, its milestone-marking cinema returns, plus the Melbourne International Film Festival doing a Hear My Eyes screening in 2022 with Mick Harvey composing a new score and playing it live with Gareth Liddiard from Tropical Fuck Storm and The Drones, Jim White from Dirty Three and Chris Abrahams from The Necks, for instance — a filmmaker’s dream? And also directing a picture with dialogue that has been quoted by many in regular conversation for a quarter of a century now, too? “I think so,” Dominik says. “It certainly feels good. Having had the opposite reaction to films, that’s definitely better.”
One entry on his resume that didn’t garner the same response is his most-recent feature “Blonde,” although star Ana de Armas was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe. Dominik sees that film as a kindred spirit to “Chopper”. Both pursue his interest in people constructing an identity, building and then maintaining appearances, and keeping stories about themselves going. “Yeah, yeah, very much so,” he says. “I think there’s similarities. I think ‘Blonde’ deals with it in a much more direct way, from the point of view of putting you inside the person’s perception of the world in a very, very direct way.”
“So I think they’re similar. “Chopper’s” like the first cab off the rank, if you like, and it’s played more for laughs.”
The initial moves towards “Chopper” becoming Dominik’s first feature, when his directing resume included music videos for Crowded House’s “Fall at Your Feet,” The Cruel Sea’s “The Honeymoon Is Over” and others, arose from him reading Read’s books. “Chopper: From the Inside” released in 1991, then one a year followed until 1999: “Hits and Memories,” “How to Shoot Friends & Influence People,” “For the Term of His Unnatural Life,” “Pulp Faction: Revenge of the Rabbit Kisser and Other Jailhouse Stories,” “No Tears for a Tough Guy,” “The Singing Defective,” “The Sicilian Defence” and “The Final Cut”. (“The Popcorn Gangster” hit bookshelves in 2001 and “Last Man Standing: From Ex-Con to Icon” in 2007, alongside other tomes by Read in-between and after, up until his death in October 2013.)
“I think the reason he became famous was because of the books. Obviously he’d kidnapped the judge and he’d done a few crimes and got a bit of attention, but nobody knew about it until the books came out,” notes Dominik. “I was amazed that we were able to get the rights to the books because we were just no one. I’d made a few music videos and Michele [producer Bennett] was a commercial producer. But I guess nobody else thought about it at the time, or were a bit slow off the mark or something.”
Bana as Chopper was the Read’s own suggestion. The film completely changed the actor’s career trajectory; for his part in helping put the Australian actor on a path that’s led to “Black Hawk Down,” “Hulk,” “Troy,” “Munich,” “Hanna,” “Dirty John,” “The Dry” and its sequel “Force of Nature,” plus 2025 Netflix hit “Untamed,” again “I just didn’t really think about it,” Dominik says. “I think I thought it was just really cool, he’s doing Ridley Scott movies and Ang Lee movies. I was a bit more self-centred back then. I thought about myself more than I thought about Eric. But he was ready for it. He was really ready for everything that came his way.”
Was Dominik himself prepared for what came next? After “Chopper,” he helmed 2007’s Brad Pitt– and Casey Affleck-starring “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” which earned the latter his first Academy Award nomination. 2012’s “Killing Them Softly” was also led by Pitt. Jumping to documentaries, Dominik’s focus turned to Nick Cave in 2016’s “One More Time with Feeling” — and alongside Warren Ellis, in “This Much I Know to Be True.” The acclaimed musicians scored both “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and “Blonde.”
This year, Dominik turned his camera towards U2’s frontman in Cannes-premiering Apple TV+ documentary “Bono: Stories or Surrender?.”
“I guess that I was a bit nervous about being able to do it again,” Dominik remarks about where “Chopper” placed him career-wise after its initial release. “Or, at least I thought that’s what it was. But I take a long time between films, and it’s usually because I can’t find something I want to do, is really what it is. I guess that’s for people to look at from the outside. From the inside, it’s just like ‘okay, you make a film’. You’re looking for a film that you can fall in love with. And it’s like that — it’s like falling in love. There’s not a lot of logic involved. It’s kind of an unconscious thing as to why you pick a particular thing.”
With “Chopper,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”, “Killing Them Softly” and “Mindhunter,” of which Dominik directed a pair of episodes in the Netflix series’ second season, exploring the darker side of human nature clearly appeals — and consciously. “I think all the films are about self-destruction. And all of the films are about people that are struggling with themselves more than they’re struggling with other people,” Dominik says. “I just think we don’t really see the world so much as we see ourselves, or we see it through the lens of our own fears and desires. That’s interesting to me.”
Dominik chalks “Chopper’s” longevity up to the obvious: “it’s the film. It’s good. It’s not a bad film. You watch it and it takes you on a ride, and it gives you feelings that you’re not used to encountering in a movie — that are surprising and delightful. And delightful in areas that you’re not expecting to be delighted, because a lot of his behaviour is just incredibly questionable, but at the same time, I just think it’s, I guess, it’s entertaining.”
“If you’re a certain age in Australia, ‘Chopper’ was really a thing, and it’s great,” he continues. “I’m very pleased about that, to have made something that entered the culture in that sense.”
“I remember at the Melbourne Film Festival, two people fainted, had to be carried out — and I thought ‘’Chopper’s’ still got it’. I was very proud of that,” he also notes. Asked whether it was the ear scene that caused the dizziness, he’s not sure. “I don’t know what it was. I just heard about it afterwards. Maybe they were just sick or had too much to drink or something, and it had nothing to do with the film, but I like to think it was ‘Chopper’ upsetting them.”
Another source of pride for Dominik about his debut, and another reason he believes that it has endured: that “other people have taken the film and run with it.” Heath Franklin instantly springs to mind for him, and for everyone. “So there was that comedian who did ‘Chopper’s Weather Report’, who was just hilarious. That just further built on whatever it was, that attitude.”
Overall, “I guess he was a person that we knew,” says Dominik of Read and “Chopper’s” depiction of him. “There was a particular aspect of the Australian character that seemed to be distilled in him and everyone recognised it. And that’s great. It was articulated in some way, and that’s why it survived, I guess.”
“At the time, I was just trying to make a film, and make a film that I thought would be good.”